Definition
A Latin term from medieval English law with two related but distinct applications, both centering on the concept of a rent or rental arrangement.
1. Generally: A renting or the payment of a fixed rent. The phrase per certam arrentationem means "by, for, or at a certain rent," appearing in the Registrum Originale (Register of Writs) in contexts establishing the terms of a tenancy or land-use arrangement.
2. In forest law specifically: An arrentation — the formal licensing of a landowner whose property lay within a royal forest to enclose that land with a low hedge and small ditch, in exchange for the payment of a yearly rent to the Crown. The enclosure rights granted were deliberately modest in scope: the hedge was required to be low and the ditch small, preserving the access and movement of game through the forest. This was a significant concession in the context of forest law, which otherwise imposed severe restrictions on any enclosure, building, or agricultural activity within forest bounds.
Common Confusion
Arrentatio is sometimes loosely equated with any form of enclosure or with the general concept of assarting (clearing forest land for cultivation). These are distinct. Assarting involved converting forest land to agricultural use and was typically a more serious encroachment, subject to heavy fines or forfeiture. Arrentatio was a licensed, rent-paying arrangement that legitimized a limited enclosure without converting the land's essential character. The rent payment was the mechanism that reconciled private landholding with the Crown's forest rights.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in medieval English land law or forest law records will encounter arrentatio almost exclusively in its forest law context. The term appears in the Registrum Originale and in the Ordinances of the Forest (34 Edward I, c. 5), and these are the primary anchoring sources for its technical meaning. The Ordinances of the Forest are essential background for interpreting the term correctly — without that context, the general "renting" definition may be applied where the specialized forest law meaning is intended.
The anglicized form arrentation was used by Francis Bacon, which means researchers working in early modern legal literature may encounter the English rendering rather than the Latin. Burrill flags this directly, citing Bacon's Works. This is useful: a researcher encountering arrentation in a post-medieval source should not assume it has drifted in meaning — Bacon used it in its technical sense.
Corpus researchers should note that arrentatio belongs to the cluster of forest law terms (alongside assart, purpresture, waste, and cheminage) that appear in records of forest eyres and royal forest administration. It is unlikely to appear outside that context or the general writs context in the Registrum Originale. Because the term is narrowly attested, any occurrence in the Law Mind corpus is almost certainly drawing on one of these two sources.
The restriction on the physical character of the enclosure — low hedge, small ditch — is legally operative, not merely descriptive. A more substantial enclosure would not qualify as an arrentatio and would instead constitute an unlicensed purpresture or encroachment subject to forfeiture.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the primary source for this term in the English legal dictionary tradition. Burrill correctly identifies both the general renting sense and the specialized forest law meaning, and he distinguishes them clearly. His citations to the Registrum Originale (at pages 252, 257b, and 258) and to the Ordinances of the Forest (34 Edward I, c. 5) are the standard anchoring references.
Burrill's note that Lord Bacon used the anglicized arrentation is a useful philological observation — it confirms the term remained in active legal use into the early seventeenth century and had not become purely archaic by Bacon's time. The citation to Bacon's Works (iv. 255, 256) provides a traceable reference for researchers who wish to examine that usage in context.
No significant divergence or error appears in Burrill's treatment. The entry is brief but accurate. Researchers should be aware, however, that Burrill does not discuss the procedural mechanics of how an arrentation was obtained — the licensing process, the body granting it, or the enforcement consequences of violating the hedge-and-ditch limitation. For those details, the Ordinances of the Forest themselves and secondary literature on royal forest administration are necessary.
Jurisdictional Note
Arrentatio is a term of English forest law and has no direct equivalent in Scottish, Irish, or continental legal systems. It has no operative meaning in modern law. Researchers should treat it as a historical term of art confined to the English common law tradition and its medieval records.